Friday, October 15, 2010

Christmas Ale 2010


I forgot to post about the annual Christmas Ale I have brewed with my good friend Tommy G for the past 5 years. This years version has been brewed, fermented and is currently bottle conditioning. The brew day went pretty well, with one kind of somewhat major mistake. Hopefully that mistake doesn't have too much impact on the final beer. So, what was the mistake you ask? Well the recipe we designed calls for 2 lbs of brown sugar. I typically I buy 1 lb bags of brown sugar. This time around I didn't realize the bags I picked up were actually 2 lb bags. So we go ahead and empty the two bags into the last 10 minutes of the boil and then sit back to relax while the boil finishes. I'm sitting there a glance over at the bags we just put in the trash...2 lb value pack! Ughhh, oh well. So this years version has 4 lbs of brown sugar (in a 10 gallon batch). Initial taste shows that the beer dried out some more and may be a little thinner then we typically like. Our efficiency was a little off though so somehow the OG ended up around the same, with the FG dropping a little lower then expected. So who knows, could make for a fun Christmas.

Grains
22 lb of American Two Row
1 lb of Wheat Malt
1 lb of Crystal 20
1 lb of Crystal 80
1 lb of Victory
1/2 lb of Chocolate Malt
2 lb of Brown Sugar (Beet Sugar) (made a mistake and 4 lbs ended up in the kettle). Added the last 10 minutes of the boil.

3 lbs of Extra Light DME

Hops
1.5 oz of Tomahawk @ 60 minutes
1 oz of Amarillo @ 30 minutes
2 oz of Simcoe @ 15 minutes
2 oz of Simcoe @ KO

Spices
6 sticks of Cinnamon
2 Vanilla Bean Split
3 tsp of Nutmeg (Whole ground on brew day)
3 tsp of All Spice (Ground)
1 tsp of Madagascar Clove (Ground)
Zest of 6 Navel Oranges
All added at 1 minute left in boil.

Yeast
Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast – large starter. 2 packs

Targets
Pre-Boil Gravity = 1.051 (takes into account just the grain bill)
OG = 1.081
FG = 1.010-1-020
ABV = 8.2-9.5%
IBU = 34

All Grain Steps

Mash with 8 Gallons of Water @ 152 degrees. Hold as close to 152 as possible for one hour. Keep 1 gallon of cold water around to adjust temp.

Sparge with 10 Gallons of Water @ 200 degrees.

Final Numbers
OG = 1.079
FG = 1.015
ABV = 8.3%

1 comment:

  1. This recipe looks awesome!! I think I'm going to give it a shot, but I think I'm going to try some belgian yeast instead. Have you brewed this again? Any tips for a new brewer??

    ReplyDelete